The AU
by itsallaboutme11
Summary: All they wanted to do was go to the beach. Now they've died, and somehow managed to land themselves in the Naruto world. Oh, the dispair. For the Naruto characters, that is. Crack.
1. Chapter 1

* * *

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except the obvious.**

A/N: Originally started as a joke between a friend of mine and me, the story was planned to be no more than five pages long. Now, spanning across three notebooks and quite a few looseleaf papers, it's become an epic in and of itself. The characters are loosely-and i mean very loosely-on ourselves and friends of ours. Scattered throughout this monster are also references to various movies, tv shows, and books. The person who can identify the most in each chapter gets a shoutout.

So, continue on, those of you who actually read this.

* * *

**Chapter 1**

**In Which Our Heroes Die,**

**Meet a Toad, and Live Once Again**

"Hey, do you guys have any money?" A fifteen-year-old girl, wearing a cranberry red, cherub t-shirt and jean short shorts, glanced at her two friends expectantly. They shook their heads.

The three children had paused in front of a vending machine on the way to the beach. None of them looked to even remotely matched the Japanese native that occasionally walked by.

Even in America however, they would've mad a strange spectacle. Andrea, size five foot one (and a half sometimes), with her naturally loud and hyper temperament, bright blonde hair, and blue-gray eyes framed in purple, green, and blue glasses would've stuck out anywhere. Even in her home state of California. Jennifer loomed over her louder friend by nine (sometimes eight and a half) inches, with waist length chocolate brown hair normally pulled back in a braid, and a rather sarcastic and morbid since of humor. She spent a lot of time looming over her friends, Andrea specifically. Austin, was only two inches shorter than Jennifer, however, so she couldn't quite pull it off with him. He didn't really have anything to make him stick out (unless you counted the brown hair with one thick blonde swirl in it) until he opened his mouth. Then you got an overload of just how girly a guy could get. Really, the only thing that they all had in common was that they were considered freaks, were fifteen-years-old, and thought that Naruto was the best ninja show ever created.

"Maybe you could give me some food from the basket," Andrea asked slyly.

"No, Andrea," Jen said patiently. "You just ate three jelly-filled donuts not even ten minutes ago. You are not getting any more food."

"But I'm _hungry_."

"I don't care if you're the Fullmetal Alchemist's long lost sister." The tone in Jen's voice spoke of how often this conversation was repeated between the two. "You can wait until we get to the beach to eat."

"I will melt in a pool of hungry mush long before then, and then where will you be? You'll go to my funeral, and be all like 'I should've given her some food! But I didn't, and now she's dead!' and then you'll be all depressed and commit suicide-"

"That is quite enough," Jen interrupted, rolling her eyes at her friend's over-dramatic nature. "Where you got the idea that I even remotely cared about whether or not you're alive-"

"Yes you do." Andrea grinned at the taller girl, eyes turning into upside down u's. "'Cause if I died, than you wouldn't have any stories to read."

"Hurry up," Austin yelled over his shoulder, already thirty feet ahead of the girls. "We're gonna miss it!"

"Don't get your panties in a twist," Jen yelled back, starting towards him. "The fishermen won't run off without you."

The two were almost at the end of the road before Andrea realized they had left. Starting to run, she started to wave spastically, yelling, "Wait up!"

The other two slowed down, so much so that she over-judged her speed. So when she caught up, she didn't realize they had stopped at the corner of the street, and bumped into their backs. All three of them went sprawling into the streets, right in front of a speeding car.

* * *

White. That's all they could see in every direction. Flat "land", spreading out as far as you could see. It wasn't even really land, in the strictest sense. Not as far as they could tell, at least, since it was impossible to tell if they were standing on something, or just floating. Even after Andrea had taken of her shoes and jumped up and down, the ground was barely able to be felt.

"I think we fell into the matrix," Andrea remarked, voice dry.

"Now all we need is some bald black guy to jump out from nowhere and tell us to choose between the blue pill or the red pill." Jen's voice was even drier. "I can see it now. He'll be sitting on a raggedy, old, red armchair and-"

Suddenly, in front of them was a floating toad. A big, bright yellow one. He was wearing an Arabian-ish blue and purple vest and smoking a pipe while sitting cross-legged on a velvet cushion.

"AHHHHH!!" Andrea screamed, jumping behind Austin and hiding. "Don't eat me! He tastes much better." She shoved Austin from behind, making him stumble forward a few steps.

"I'm not going to eat you," the toad told them patiently, a disgruntled expression on his face. "The only reason I'm even here is because of you."

"Me?" Andrea raised her eyebrows in skepticism and shook her head. "I'm certainly flattered and all, but-and don't take this the wrong way-there's no way in _hell_ I'm marrying you."

The toad blinked at them, confused, as all three of the teens started to cackle evilly.

"Okay, okay." Jen wiped the tears from her eyes and the smile from her face. "Inside joke. So what do you really want-"

Andrea and Austin once again burst out in gawfs. Jen threw them an annoyed look, and they stopped. "We'll be serious now," Andrea said, the corner of her lips twitching.

Jen rolled her eyes and turned back to the toad. "Now, as I was **saying**," She paused as if to give her two friends a moment to interject their comments, before continuing lightly, "why do you want Andrea?"

The toad had a strangely embarrassed look when he mumbled back, "Well, um, she kinda, wasn't supposed to die for another eight years."

"I'm…dead?" Andrea asked, face an adorable mask of confusion.

"Knew I should've expected this," the toad muttered, before simultaneously raising and gentling his voice. "Yeah. The car hit you, killing you almost immediately."

There was absolute silence in the blank white space for a few seconds while Andrea processed the information. Jen and Austin both eyed the girl carefully, not quite sure what her reaction would be, but sure that it wouldn't be pretty. They didn't have to wait long.

You could tell when she finally understood what she had been told by her eyes. They widened to easily the size of dinner plates, going unfocused, while her pupils shrunk to the size of pinheads.

"Dray?" Jen asked warily when the minute line was passed, and she still was standing there, eyes unfocused and stone still. "Are you okay?"

That seemed to do the trick. Blinking she came back to herself, eyes refocusing. However, that wasn't exactly a good thing.

"I'm dead?" she said once again, but this time her voice was demanding. "I'm dead?! How could I be dead? I never got to do anything that I wanted to do! I never got to get drunk, or get arrested, or sleep with someone, or get drunk-"

"You said get drunk twice," Jen reminded her, voice bored. She was much less affected by Andrea's abrupt ranting than, say, Austin, who was cowering in fear behind the taller girl.

"It was kinda the top of my priority list," Andrea snapped back. Then the second part of the Toad's sentence hit her, and she jerked around to glare at him. "What do you mean, eight years?"

"You, um," the toad coughed, embarrassed. "You kinda go alcoholic…"

"WOOT!" Andrea yelled abruptly, throwing her hands up in the air and doing a little victory dance. "I become my life long dream! I would like to thank all the little people I've stepped on to get here, and the alcohol companies, and my parents for making my teenage life shit…"

"Anyway," The toad continued, once again gaining their attention. "You can die, and go up to the equivalent of heaven, or I can send you to another reality."

"Really?" Andrea's happiness levels shot through the roof. "Would you send us to the Naruto world?"

"Let me rephrase my previous sentence. I can send _you_, Andrea Eberhart, to another world. Them…not so much. They were supposed to die anyway."

There was a brief moment of horrified silence, broken by a snarled, "Oh _no_ you _don't_!" Andrea stalked forward and poked each word to emphasize her point. "_You _were the one that screwed up my date of death. Not me. So _you're_ gonna do what I damn near tell you to, or I'm gonna shove my foot so far up your ass that the water on my knee's gonna quench your thirst. And right now I'm telling you to send all three of us."

The toad blew out a stream of smoke in an irritated sort of way. "Bipolar much?" he muttered, before continuing grudgingly, "If that's the way it's gonna be…"

Flopping his gigantic body into the air, he disappeared with a poof of smoke and a loud popping noise.

"Want you to marry him," Austin chuckled, randomly and with a touch of hysteria. As if this was a cue, the white blankness began to run down in rivulets, replaced by nothingness.

* * *

"Argg…" Andrea moaned, sitting up and clutching her head. "I can certainly empathize with a raw cracked egg right about now."

Two answering moans were heard to her left and right, as Austin and Jen joined the land of the living. Shifting her head so it leaned against the brick/clay-type wall behind them, Jen muttered, "If I ever get near that toad again, I swear to god he's going to wish…he's gonna wish…well, I don't know what he's gonna wish, but it's not going to be good."

"I second that," Andrea agreed, closing her eyes and irritably pulling at the bunched material under her ankles. Gone were her normal blue jeans, t-shirts in an array of colors, and dark blue, velvet hoodie, replaced instead with a calf-length purple skirt and light pink, short-sleeved blouse. "He stole my favorite pair of jeans, not to mention my lucky jacket."

Austin sniggered next to her, thinking, _**More like vest. That jacket was so worn down that you could see the threads keeping the sleeves on.**_ Thought, not said. Despite what might be thought of him, and his actions later on, Austin is not as idiotic as his appearance makes him seem.

And so the three kids sat, nursing their headaches and, on Andrea's part, mentally taking apart the toad slice by slimy slice. Occasionally one of them would crack an eyelid open and comment on what they said. Other than that, though, their conversation was extremely limited (generally grunts and mumblings, punctuated with a few 'stop squirming's).

Approximately and hour after the last comment on the outside world, Andrea carefully peeled an eyelid up, and looked around. Seeing nothing of interest at ground level, she ran a casual eye over the higher story structure. And, sure enough, hanging from an alcove across the street, was a familiar masked ninja. He reading a familiar looking book, and she was quite pleased to note that his hair was still at the exact same angle it always was.

Smirking, Andrea elbowed Jen in the side, and bonked Austin on the top of his head, bringing each around—albeit with protests. Those were quickly stalled when she jerked her chin towards Kakashi.

"500 dollars say that the book's cover is orange," Andrea murmured to both of them.

"I don't take sucker bets," Jen whispered back dryly.

"Care to see how the content can compare to what we read?" Andrea continued, used to the other girl's sarcasm.

"What _you_ read." Jen, too, was used to her friend's moods and attention span. "And Jeraiya isn't called the Great Perverted Sannin for nothing, so your crap will probably fall quite short. But, before we go off on another of your harebrained schemes, might I mention something? This is Kakashi. The same guy who became a genin at 5, was in the ANBU not so long ago, has the transplanted Sharingan, and could very easily kick you butt all over Konoha."

"And also allowed Naruto's stupid eraser fall on his head," Andrea added, tapping the side of her nose. Jen gave her a level look, so she turned to Austin. "Hey, Austin, you'll do it with me right?"

"Huh?" He looked at her in oblivion, but Andrea had already turned back to Jen.

"_He'll_ do it with me," she told Jen, smirking triumphantly. Jen shook her head slightly before starting to rub her temples.

"I guess I don't really have much of a choice then," she answered a couple seconds later, voice slightly muffled. Andrea grinned.

"Now here's the plan…."


	2. Chapter 2

**Not owned by me, yadda, yadda, yadda.**

* * *

**Chapter 2**

**In which Our Heroes Steal a Book**

**And Meet the People**

Lying flat on the ground, Andrea blew a piece of bang out of her eyes and mentally cursed the Frog as she did her best to crawl towards the target.

Due to her abrupt switch in outfits, she was having a much harder time of it than she had expected. Her flip-flops were clutched in one hand, and had been so since the beginning of the expedition, but the problem lay not in the footwear but in skirt-or in the fact that Andrea hadn't gotten near one since eighth grade graduation two years before. You see, due to her lack of experience in moving in such un-Andrea-like clothing, the cloth kept tangling up in her legs and pinning her to that spot for several moments until she figured out how to untangle it.

There was only so much abuse Andrea could take, however. So when the skirt had gotten caught on a rock for what felt like the fifty-seventh time, she admitted defeat and stood up. Measuring the distance between her and the target by eye, she decided that it would have to do.

Tying her hair into a messy ponytail, Andrea shoved her shoes into the waistband of her skirt and gathered the bottom of her skirt in on hand until it just brushed the tops of her knees. She straightened her back and held her head high, marched determinedly until she was directly behind Kakashi, and tapped him politely on the shoulder.

"Hello," Andrea greeted when the ex-ANBU member had turned around, flashing him a grin. "Lovely day, isn't it? So, if you don't mind, I'll just be borrowing this."

And before the man could comment, she snatched the book from his hands and took off down the street. Laughing gleefully, she yelled over her shoulders, "I ain't waiting for you losers!"

The other two stuck their tongues out at her, but leaped off the roofs they had been lying on and took off towards Andrea. Glaring angrily at the blonde when she was level, Jennifer growled out, "Thank you for informing us of the change of plan."

Andrea shrugged, turning sharply. "What did you want me to do, yell it out?" Nearly losing her footing once again, she slowed down just long enough to shove the book next to her flip flops and shift her grip so she was holding the skirt with both hands, before speeding up again.

"That would've been nice," Jennifer said irritably. "Maybe not cost efficient, but we would've at least been read."

"Oh shut up," Andrea ordered, rolling her eyes. "I don't remember seeing _you_ trying to crawl undetected on the ground in a gorram skirt!"

"Like I don't have to all the time back home?" Jennifer snorted. "As if. So stop whining and feel _my_ pain for once."

"You're just jealous because I managed to come out of there without a trace of dirt on my person, while you, who had a wonderful seat on the roof, look like you got trampled by an elephant," Andrea said, turning her nose upwards snootily.

"Touché."

"Uh guys?" Austin called from somewhere behind the two girls, panting heavily as he tried to keep up. "You think we could slow down, or stop and take a break?"

* * *

Flipping through the book one last time, Jen made a disgusted noise and tossed Icha, Icha Paradise at Andrea. Startled, she barely caught the book before it smacked her on the head.

"It's worse than the trash you read on the internet," Jen said, closing her eyes as she settled into her chair. "Heck, you even write better. And I've read your stuff: it's crap."

"So Jeraiya's not the super perv we suspected he was?" Andrea murmured, ignoring the dig as she began to read. "Interesting."

"You lie!" Austin gasped, staring at Andrea with an alarmed look. Still not looking up from the book, the shorter girl shook her head.

"If you can't write good smut, then he's not a super perv. I mean, it's not like he's Miroku, and goes around asking every woman to bear his child or anything. And everyone knows that the only reason he was called that was because of the books."

"Well, I _am_ the leading expert of pervs," Austin said slyly, reaching for the book. "Let me read it and judge."

With little effort, Andrea held him off with her forearm and continued to read. She propelled him away from her with a hardy shove, causing him to fall back into his seat and pout.

"You can read it when I'm finished," Andrea murmured, unperturbed, as she turned a page. "

A few minutes went by in comfortable silence. Jen stared at the sky, while Austin was watching Andrea read the book with a hungry look. Andrea was not unaware of his intent gaze on the manuscript in her hands, nor was she immune.

"Dude, stop it," she finally ordered, setting the book down so she could glare at the boy. "You're freaking me out, and making my people detection sense go haywire."

Jen snorted, asking loudly, "What people detection skills? Oh, wait, you don't _have_ any."

"More than you ever will," Andrea replied, looking back at her page. Jen raised her eyebrows.

"_What_ was that?" she demanded, voice dangerously calm.

"Nothing," Andrea said slowly, looking up and flashing a disarming smile. Jen rolled her eyes and went back to staring at the sky, muttering about nattering nitwits and their big mouths.

"Dude, I may be a nitwit." Andrea interrupted her spiel, lifting her chin mulishly. "But I'm also the nitwit who got this" Andrea shook the paperback underneath Jen's nose. "off of Mr. Getting-too-old-to-have-that-long-of-hair back there. And, considering the sheer amount of effort I expended in the attempt to do so, I might not even let you look at it at all."

But it seems that the gods of Smut and Pervs-Andrea's patron deities, second only to DionysusGreek god of wine-had gone off to pursue their own various interests. This was unfortunate, due to the fact that at that at that moment Kakashi decided to snatch the orange book out of Andrea's hands.

"This," he said dryly, shaking the book at the girl as you would towards a misbehaving puppy. "is not something children should be reading."

Andrea tilted her head backwards to glare up at the Jounin, yelling out angrily, "Give that back!" Twisting around to face the man, she attempted to snatch the book back. This was an unrealistic goal, however, as he held her off with the same amount of energy Andrea has expelled on Austin-that is to say, none at all.

Kakashi eventually tired off holding the unrelenting child off, because just as the blonde began to contemplate ramming into him, she experienced a strange feeling of vertigo as her world suddenly went upside down, and the ground abruptly distanced itself by over a foot.

Many things had occurred to Andrea in her short—but very informative—life when people had tired of her persistent behavior. She had been ignored, insulted, even been hit a time or two. But she had never been thrown over someone's shoulder like a sack of potatoes! It was demeaning, and she would not stand for it!

"Put me DOWN!" she yelled angrily, hitting the broad span of green canvassed back with a closed fist.

Kakashi ignored her. Instructing Austin and Jen to follow him, he began making his way from the half-hidden café the three had been sitting in front of, towards the main street and who knows where.

This did not bother Andrea whatsoever, as she was still mad that she was being ignored. Pushing herself up onto her elbows and looking over her shoulder, she attempted to kick the man in the face, screeching, "I'm talking to you, you lousy excuse for a three-legged dog! Stop ignoring me!"

The only thing that this awarded her was a jolt that made Andrea lose her balance and fall back against Kakashi's back. After all, if you can't see what you're aiming at, there's no point in kicking it.

Huffing, the girl gave up on bodily harming her 'kidnapper' and instead opted to glare at her two friends, who were hiding their sniggers.

"This is not funny," she informed them in a deadpan voice, and Austin shook his head.

"Yeah it is," he contradicted, sticking his tongue out at her childishly.

"Karma was invented for a reason, idiot," Andrea informed him with a sneer. "You should know all about that, shouldn't you, Mr. I-insulted-Andrea-and-got-hit-in-the-face-with-a-door-and-fell-down-the-stairs."

Austin rolled his eyes, muttering, "And I should care about this, why…"

"Oh shut up," Andrea ordered, sitting up. "And just because I'm currently thrown over the shoulder of a Jounin with a caveman-complex—no offense, dude—doesn't mean you can insult me. I'm not gonna be here forever, and I can still beat your ass no matter where we are."

Sighing, Jen rubbed her temples, asking tiredly, "Must you always argue?"

Andrea flashed a grin at her, chirping happily, "Yup!"

Kakashi jostled her, almost making her lose her balance. "Quiet."

Andrea twisted around and blew a wet raspberry at the back of his head. Kakashi jostled her again, and this time she did lose her balance. She gave up on being able to sit up and talk at the same time, opting instead to stare downwards.

Tilting her head from side to side, she said thoughtfully, "This isn't all that bad actually. I've got a wonderful view of his butt, which is very fine, I might add. You have a very nice butt, dude," she called over her shoulder. Jen and Austin burst out laughing, while Andrea smiled smugly.

"Five bucks says he's blushing," she whispered loudly, Still giggling, Austin skipped around Kakashi and walked backwards for a few seconds, before whirling back around to the back of the group.

"He is!" he yelled, wearing a grin nearly as wide as Andrea's.

* * *

Fifteen highly entertaining minutes later, they could be found in a plain, ugly, and empty room, where Kakashi had dropped us in five minutes earlier, with orders to not move from those spots.

"I'm booooored," Andrea complained, thumping her head on the wall behind her. Jen and Austin ignored her.

Excepting the lack of a table and chairs, this could have been Ebisu's interrogation room. And after various attempts at alleviating the boredom by moving, she had also found that when you kicked the farthest corner from the door, you got a hollow sound. Other than that, though, there was nothing that Andrea found notable.

Sighing, the blonde absently dug in her skirt pocket for something, anything, to occupy her attention and alleviate the boredom. Much to her joy, she found a ballpoint pen, and immediately pulled it out. Just as she was about to start clicking away, she remembered her friends.

Glancing over, she saw Jen and Austin were leaning against the wall, attempting to sleep. An evil, Grinch-like grin grew over her face, as she held up the pen and clicked it once.

The effect that that one innocent sound caused was comparable to a gunshot.

Jen's eyes snapped open, and she glared at Andrea. The shorter girl smothered her giggles and held up her pen.

"Don't do it, Andrea," Jen said warningly. "Don't you dare push that-" The rest of her sentence was drowned out by a flurry of clicks.

**Five minutes later:**

"I left them in one of the empty questioning rooms," Kakashi told the Hokage, leading him down a bare stone corridor.

"Are you sure that's wise?" Saritobi asked concernedly. "They could hurt themselves if they're left alone like that, after all."

Kakashi had no time to answer, since as soon as he entered the holding area, he stepped straight into a war zone.

The three teens he had left behind were chasing each other, the girl with the braid and the boy going after the blonde in pigtails. She was laughing manically while clicking her pen, which had obviously sent the other two into a rage.

"I'm going to kill you!" Braid yelled. "I'll break your neck and set you on fire!"

Blondie paid no attention to the other girl's threats. Still laughing uproariously, she hit a wall full tilt and bounced off of it like a ball. Hitting the ceiling at double her running speed, she stuck there for several seconds, before peeling off and landing on Kakashi's head and shoulders.

"Nya, nya, nya, nya, nya," Blondie taunted, sticking her tongue out at the other two, who were at least a foot away from her. "Can't get me up here."

Kakashi sweat dropped. 'There is a _child_ on my head,' he thought unhappily and a little shell shocked. 'There is a child on my head, and she is squishing my wonderful hair while taunting two others. My magnificent hair will not survive!'

Indeed, Kakashi's unhappy predictions of doom for his hair were not that far off. Braid's eyelid had begun to twitch at Blondie's taunting, and a vein showed with sharp relief on her forehead.

"I can't get you down from there?" she demanded, voice dangerously calm.

Blondie was oblivious to the calamity that was threatening her, as she nodded victoriously. And to seal her fate, she held up her pen.

Click.

Braid let out a ferocious war cry and tackled Kakashi around the waist. And while this wasn't enough to make the Jounin fall, it was more than enough to make Blondie topple off of her own throne. And Braid was waiting for her at the bottom.

Clamoring up onto her knees, Braid grabbed a hold of one end of the pen—still miraculously held onto by Blondie—and began tugging insistently.

"Give. Me. The. Pen." Braid grunted, punctuating each word with a harsh tug.

Blondie shook her head firmly, yelling out, "No!"

Tugging futilely, the two fought over the pen, each employing every trick they could think of as they rolled across the floor. Finally Braid emerged victorious.

Sitting on Blondie's shoulders, she held the pen up proudly, proclaiming, "HA! I win!"

A polite cough was heard from above them, and the two looked up. Seeing who exactly they were lying in front of, they blushed.

"Uhh…" Braid squeaked towards Saratobi. "Hi?


	3. Chapter 3

****

Disclaimer: I don't own anybody except who I do-aka, OC's, cool descriptions, and stuff. This applies to all future chapters because I'm getting bored of having to write this with each new chapter.

* * *

**Chapter 3**

**In Which Our Heroes Become Ninjas**

**And Rent an Apartment**

Puffing away on his pipe, Saratobi looked over the two girls who had fallen at his feet. Both of them were disheveled, sweaty, covered in dust, and shuffling nervously. Deciding that if he continued to stare at them in silence any longer they were going to die of nervousness, Saratobi nodded his head and greeted them.

"Hello."

"Yo dude," the blonde one said, flashing a peace sign at the Hokage as she stood up. The girl with the braid, who had been clambering up as well, elbowed the other girl in the side. This accompanied a look that clearly read as 'shut up, moron.'

"I trust that you do not need any medical attention?" Satatobi asked, raising an eyebrow. While both girls nodded, it was the blonde who answered.

"Naw, man, we're just fine."

"Normally I like to know the names of those that I have waiting to speak to me," Saratobi continued calmly.

Blondie opened her mouth to answer, but was forestalled by a swift kick in the shin. Instead, Braid took a step forward and said politely, "Well, sir, I'm Shiko and the blonde midget back there is Yuki. As for the idiot boy back there-"

"We call him Sakura," 'Yuki' interrupted, smiling sadistically.

"Sakura?" Saratobi asked disbelievingly. 'Yuki' colored.

"It's a nickname," she said defensively. "Anyway, his real name's Takomaru, if you _have_ to know."

"Those certainly are interesting names." Saratobi pulled his pipe away from his mouth and continued in a perfectly reasonable tone. "And I'm sure that there is just an interesting answer as to why you decided to assault one of my ninjas today."

"Well, I'm not sure you could really call it assault. More like robbery, since we stole his book."

"Not helping," 'Shiko' ground out. The other girl ignored her.

"And why did you steal his book?"

"'Cause it looked interesting, of course. And we didn't expect his to get so mad, honest!" Here, a whining tone entered the girl's voice. "It's just that whenever we see it in bookstores and stuff it's always got that stupid little plastic wrap over it, and, and, that sticker in the corner that has a bunch of little squigglies on it, and no one ever lets us buy it."

"Really? Yuki, have you ever heard the expression curiosity killed the cat?"

All three of the children-even Austin, who was hanging out behind the other two-rolled their eyes.

"Ten times over," Andrea said.

"Does no one remember the other part?" Jen asked. "'But satisfaction brought it back!'"

"True, true," Saratobi agreed. "But enough of that. Who are your parents? I'm going to need to call them in to release you."

The three children exchanged nervous looks, before Andrea answered carefully, "We don't have any."

Saratobi, who was not as old nor as stupid as he looked, had noticed the look and was put on guard. "You mean you ran away?"

"No, I mean we quite literally don't have any. None that we remember at least. What did the doctors call it? Abnesea? Ambrosia?"

"Amnesia?" Saratobi supplied.

"Yeah, that. We woke up in the middle of a forest a month ago. Didn't 'member anything, so we've just been moving around since then."

"_You_ don't remember anything," Jen said. "I remember there were a couple of guys with bats."

"You ALWAYS say that," Andrea said, rolling her eyes. "And it's not true."

"Yeah-huh!"

"Nuh-uh!"

Sighing, Saratobi rubbed his forehead. He could feel another headache coming on. But he couldn't let the children just go. They reminded him too much of Konohamaru and Naruto. No telling what they would get into unsupervised. Only thing was that there wasn't anything else he _could_ do.

_**Well, at least Naruto's calmed down some,**_ he thought. _**Ever since he's had the Academy to occupy his time. Hey, that's not a bad idea.**_

Nodding decisively, Saratobi took a deep pull of his pipe and asked nonchalantly, "How would you like to be ninjas?"

The three seconds after that announcement proved that silence was not the opposite of noise. Silence paled in comparison to what occurred then as the two girls and a boy stared at Saratobi with buggy eyes.

Finally those three seconds passed, however, and…

"Oh _hells_ yeah!" And yelled, punching the air with a very Gai-ish sparkle in her eyes.

"Are you serious?" Like her friend, Jen had stars in place of eyes at the idea. "You're not kidding?"

"I get to be a ninja!" Austin chanted repeatedly, doing a celebratory dance.

But besides the remarkably high celebrating taking place, there was an undercurrent of protests being made by Kakashi. Ninja he may be, but he would never forgive someone(s) who had threatened his hair.

"No!" he denied, shaking his head unbelievingly. "They can't be ninjas, they just can't! God, I might have to be their sensei!"

As if this was a signal, all three froze in their respective celebratory poses. They looked at each other and grinned evilly, before slowly swiveling it on their neck to look at Kakashi. He backed up, hands held in front of him.

"Kakashi-sensei!" they yelled simultaneously, pouncing. The lazy Jounin never had a chance.

"Gerrof!" Kakashi's muffled voice came from underneath the pile of bodies. "I can't breath!"

Sighing unhappily, the three children climbed off of their current pillow and sat down in an orderly line in front of Saratobi.

"During this time, you'll get a small allowance that will be used to pay the rent of your apartment, clothes, groceries, and any ninja equipment you might need," the Hokage told them. "Kakashi will escort you while you look for an apartment and buy a wardrobe."

The Jounin, who had been lying a heap in front of the door, shot upwards and demanded unhappily, "WHAT!"

"You'll be helping them shop," Saratobi repeated calmly. "Is there a problem with that?"

"You've got to be kidding me! Of course there's a problem! These children are evil incarnate! I'm not showing THAT" he pointed at the three teens, who waved back. "around Konoha! You-you can't make me! I refuse the mission!"

"I'm not asking you." Saratobi's brows drew down, and he frowned at Kakashi. "I'm telling you."

'Are we really that bad?' Andrea mouthed.

Jen shrugged, mouthing back, 'Does it really matter?'

Kakashi was still arguing with the Hokage when three minutes later he felt something jump onto him back. Their knees clutched the space between his ribs and hips for both grip and leverage, while their arms dangled over his shoulders and chest without holding onto something

"Forward **March**!" Andrea yelled loudly, face next to his ear. Bored, she had decided to take matters into her own hands, and had hopped up onto Kakashi's back. Saratobi hid a smile. The picture really was quite cute.

Andrea waited a few moments for her new transportation device to do as she asked, and frowned when it didn't. Thus, she took it upon herself to make it do so.

Grabbing a fistful of his hair, she jerked Kakashi's head sideways and rested her forehead on his. Staring into his eyes, she growled out, "I **said** forward. March."

* * *

Several hours later:

"Ahhhhh…" Leaning back into the back of the booth, Andrea smacked her lips appreciatively and patted her swollen stomach. "That hits the spot."

In front of the girl, three stacks of blows, plate, and chopsticks about half a meter high were piled. Next to her, Jennifer and Austin were in much the same shape, although the size of their stacks varied. On the opposite side of the booth, Kakashi had a slightly sickened look.

Andrea, Jen, and Austin were bone tired, although it didn't look it. Really you couldn't blame them. They had just spent several hours shopping, annoying the crap out of Kakashi, looking for an apartment, scaring each other silly by jumping out from behind doors, annoying the crap out of Kakashi, making fun of people and themselves, buying clothes, and did I mention annoying the crap out of Kakashi, they were finally set for their 'first day of ninja school' as they said, And even though their apartment was just a step up for a shack, in one of the worst neighborhoods in Konoha, their clothes were the cheapest they could find, and they were going to have to scrounge to find food until the next payday because almost all of what was left had gone towards buying knickknacks and key chains they didn't need, they were still happy.

"Do you normally eat like that?" Kakshi asked, eyes wide. The three children shrugged, making a 'so-so' gesture with their hands.

"Just about," Andrea answered, reaching up to cover a yawn.

"Speak for yourself," Jen told her, eyes closed and sunk into the booth cushion. "I don't eat nearly _**half**_ as much as you do."

Once again, the two started to squabble, a routine that had been occurring at regular intervals throughout the day. From between the two girls, Austin began to snore.

Annoyed at the constant display, but knowing that it was futile to try and stop it because they would then turn on him, Kakashi just thanked the gods that he had had the foresight to bring the children to an all-you-can-eat restaurant. Mentally, he also added 'assassinate trio' as number one on his '101 Things to do Before You End up Dying on Some Mission' list.

As he contemplated the best way to do so, the two girls calmed down, the time and amount of food they had eaten making them too tired to argue.

And it was the quiet that finally brought Kakashi out of his thoughts.

Peering around the mountain of dishes, he saw the three children fast asleep, snoring softly. All together, they made quite a ridiculous sight. Austin had his mouth wide open and head tilted back, while the two girls used his shoulders as pillows. Andrea was mumbling in her sleep. Something about flying green and purple pigeons trying to eat her.

Leaning back, Kakashi gave the girl a searching look. Was she high? It certainly would explain some of the incidents of the afternoon…He thought back, and shook his head. He couldn't think of how she might've gotten a hold of drugs, since he had known where she was all afternoon.

That mystery settled, Kakashi set himself to waking the teens up. _**Easy as pie,**_ he thought. Except it wasn't.

Turns out that all three of them slept like rock, and nothing-including lifting up Yuki's eyelid and shining alight to check that she really WASN'T high-would wake them up.

_**Arg!**_ he thought angrily, barely resisting from tearing out his hair, _**This isn't fair! How can three kids sleep so soundly? It should be impossible, should be illegal! And how am I supposed to get them home now?**_

A sudden flashback of earlier, when Yuki had jumped onto his back, appeared to him.

"No," he denied, shaking his head. "I won't! You can't make me."

* * *

"This is so embarrassing," Kakashi mumbled to himself, glaring at the ground and anyone who happened to glance at him.

Under each arm, Jen and Austin hung, limp and snoring slightly. Andrea, as the lightest, was on his back, held in place by his chuunin vest.

"Just degrading," Kakashi continued. "I'm one of the most feared ANBU in Konoha. I trained under the Yondaime! So why I am stuck babysitting a couple of snot-nosed brats? Nothing more than a pack mule right now, I should write a complaint." Kakashi's mumbling continued, unintelligible as a whole, although the occasional, 'degrading, I refuse to be nothing more than a pack mule' were interspersed just loud enough for Yuki, had she been awake, to hear. As he went on, his voice also grew in volume. And just when it was on the brink of being heard…

Gai appeared.

"Yosh!" he yelled, making Kakashi's head snap up with a disbelieving look. "My youthful rival!"

"**Not** today Gai," Kakashi ordered, his expression morphing into one that you might've called peeved on a less intimidating man. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of busy." As if to prove his point, he shifted the dead weights higher under his arms.

Noticing the teens, Gai physically deflated. No youthful sparring for him tonight… Gai perked. This proved Kakashi was not hopeless. Just the fact that he was carrying these children home instead of leaving them where he found them proved that.

When Yuki began to slide from underneath the vest for the fifth time, Kakashi let out a long stream of expletives, and Gai found Jen and Austin shoved into his arms.

"Go ahead and make yourself useful for once," Kakashi snarled, fixing Yuki's position yet again, and stalking down the street like an angry cat. Sporting an amused smile, Gai followed


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: see chapter 3**

* * *

In Which Iruka Watches a Spy

* * *

Iruka stared at the Hokage in complete shock

Iruka stared at the Hokage in complete shock. While he had certainly questioned the man's sanity at times, what was being propositioned was completely _insane_.

"Could you repeat that?" Iruka asked, voice several octaves higher than normal. "My hearing seems to have malfunctioned"

"There will be three new students joining your graduating class as soon as possible," Saratobi repeated, as if this was quite a sensible idea.

"But that's insane!" Iruka exploded, jaw hanging open. "You can't do that! It doesn't make any sense!"

"I'm not expecting them to pass the exam on their first try Iruka," Saratobi interjected.

"And they wouldn't have any experience even if they-" Iruka stopped ranting and stared at the Hokage. "Say what?"

"You'd teach them as much as they could learn, and they'd test with the rest of their year. If they pass, wonderful. If not, then the try doesn't count, and they'd start at the bottom of the academy and work their way up again."

Iruka rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "How old are they?"

Saratobi hesitated. "I'm not quite sure. Not very old, I'd guess. The taller girl and the boy should be around twelve. The other one looks about ten."

"You didn't ask them?" he asked, eyebrows drawing down into a frown. "There's going to be issues enough with them joining the class itself without me having to deal with their supposed age impressed social status as well."

"They say they have amnesia," Saratobi explained. "Supposedly have for three months."

"Oh wonderful." Iruka sighed unhappily. "Well, at least I don't have to un-teach them any bad habits they might've learned."

"Will you take them?"

This time it was Iruka's turn to hesitate. "There's another reason you want ME in particular to teach them, isn't there?"

"I'm not entirely sure they're not spies, if that's what you're looking for," the Hokage admitted. "They seem to stick out to much to be able to be an effective spy."

"Well, then I accept the mission." Bowing once, Iruka turned and left.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I own nothing, yadda, yadda, yad. You know the drill.**

* * *

**Chapter Five**

**In which our Heroes**

**Wake up in a strange place, and to **

**Konoha's _Mighty Green Beast_**

"Wake up, wake up, it's time to wake up," someone sung in the girl's ear, bouncing and making the bed shake with their movements.

Yuki opened her eyes slowly and was met with the sight of a _disgustingly_ awake Takomaru, his face no more than a foot away from her own.

"G'way," she groaned, pulling her blanket out from under the boy and turning her back to him. "'M sleeping incase you didn't notice."

"No you're not," Takomaru continued to sing, bouncing all the higher on Yuki's bed. "It's eleven am right now. Time, past, and a crime if you don't get up."

"G'way," Yuki repeated, kicking at the boy from under the covers. "G'way, g'way, g'way!"

"Would you two SHUT UP!" Shiko yelled from across the room. "It's too early for this crap!"

Takomaru let out a dissatisfied 'harrumph,' but Yuki felt his weight leave the bed. She sighed gratefully and wiggled into a more comfortable position before closing her eyes again.

She was almost asleep when she felt the bed shift underneath her. Assuming that it was just another earthquake, she ignored it. Suddenly the bed turned eighty-five degrees, however, and she was dumped onto the floor.

Struggling out of the nest of blankets, she glared blearily at the laughing Takomaru, growling out, "You annoying little piece of crap! This isn't funny!"

"Yeah it is," Takomaru disagreed in between his spouts of laughter.

"Oooooo…" Boiling mad, Yuki picket up the nearest object small enough to be picked up-which happened to be a clock-and flung it at his still laughing face. Other objects soon followed, as Yuki chocked everything in her reach at his head.

"That the best you can do?" he taunted dodging each. "How can you possibly hope to succeed in the academy if you can't even hit me here?"

Growling, the girl picked up the last object within reach-a heady feather pillow-and chucked it at his head. The feather pillow him with a dull 'smack!' and he fell over onto his butt.

"That's the best you can do?" she mimicked from her spot on the ground. "How're you possibly going to succeed in the academy if you can't even dodge a feather pillow?"

Takomaru stuck his tongue out at her, and she promptly returned the favor before getting up and hobbling to the kitchen-like area in their apartment. Searching for food that was not currently in their possessions, Yuki opened and closed all of their cabinets, and stuck her head inside.

"Jennifer," she whined loudly when she had inspected each cupboard and found no food.

Shiko's head, complete with bed-hair, popped up from under her pile of blankets on the couch.

"What?!" she barked.

"There's no food," Yuki complained, stomach rumbling. "There's no food, and I'm _hungry_."

"Austin probably ate the rest of it," Shiko replied tiredly, turning her back to the room, and the chaos that resulted from her comment.

Quick as a flash, Yuki was kneeling over said boy, hands fisted in his t-shirt, and face inches away from his own.

"You _ate_ all my _food_?" she demanded, shaking him so hard that his head bounced every which way. "What in the name of all that is fried would prompt you to do that?"

Someone knocked on the door at that moment, before Yuki could upgrade to violence. As it was, when Yuki paused in her abuse to check on Shiko, Takomaru had something akin to shaken baby syndrome. Meanwhile, Yuki shook her head twice, any hope of help from Shiko dashed. Except for pinning a pillow over her head, the girl hadn't moved an inch.

"Lazy pig," Yuki murmured as she let go of Takomaru's jacket and rolled to her feet.

"Who're you, and why are you knocking on my door at this ungodly time in the morning," Yuki demanded rudely as she opened the door. Seeing who it was, she froze.

"Oh. My. God." Yuki blinked disbelievingly at the green and orange monstrosity standing on her front step.

"Hello," Maito Gai greeted, grinning happily. "You must be-"

The rest of his words were cut off as the door swung shut in his face. Yuki leaned against it with a desperate face, one hand scrabbling for the knob so she could lock it.

"Who was that?" Shiko asked, deciding to join the land of the living, and sticking her head out from under her pillow.

"Shuddup!" Yuki hissed, sweatdropping. "He might hear you!"

"Who's the 'he' you're talking about?" Frowning, Shiko kicked up an eyebrow at the other girl.

"Gai."

"Crap!" Scrambling out of her nest, Shiko ran to the door, and shoved Yuki out of the way so she could look through the peek hole. Seconds after putting her eye up to the hole, she squeaked, and dropped down beside Yuki, leaning against the door.

"Jeeze, it _is _Gai." The deer-in-headlights look that Shiko was sporting was not lost on Yuki. "You can't let him in!"

"What do you think I'm doing?" Yuki snarled, shooting the other girl a disbelieving look. "It's not exactly like we're throwing open the door and feeding him tea and crumpets, now are we?"

"Barracade the door," Shiko ordered, ignoring Yuki's comment as she pushed off the door to look for items to do just that. Sighing, the blonde grabbed the other end of the coffee table and helped move it in front of the door.

It took three and a half minutes to shift most of the furniture and belongings in front of the door. In less than five seconds, Shiko was already regretting her choice.

"We really _should_ hear what he's over here for…" she murmured, gnawing at her lip as she stared at the door guiltily.

"What?" Yuki demanded, whirling around to face Shiko. "You made me do all the work for nothing?"

Blushing slightly, the taller girl shrugged, communicating a silent apology with her eyes. Mumbling angrily about the idiocy of her friends, Yuki roughly began to replace the object back in their spots. That took half the time that it had to place them against the wall.

Once the area was clear enough to do so, Shiko cracked the door open no more than three inches-the perfect width to look out of, as long as you didn't mind only being able to see with one eye. Yuki and Shiko peered out warily, eyes roving around the hallway, before finally locating Him.

"What do you want?" Yuki asked suspiciously, voice muffled but still decipherable enough.

"Yeah," Shiko echoed. "Why're you standing on our front step?"

"I'll assume that you two are Shiko and Yuki?" Gai said cheerily.

"You didn't answer our question," Shiko retorted. "But while we're on the topic of names, it would be polite to introduce yourself, since you obviously already know ours."

"Oh, how rude of me!" Gai struck his infamous good guy pose. "I am Might Gai, Konoha's Illustrious Blue Beast!"

Yuki and Shiko, having caught the edge of Gai's infamous pose, blinked spots out of their eyes. They had known that his teeth sparkled, but they didn't know that they appeared around him too.

"And you are here because…?" Shiko goaded, rubbing her eye.

"My Eternal Rival Kakashi took you shopping yesterday! But the Hokage fears that My Eternal Rival might have forgotten some things! So, I, Might Gai, have been sent to help you shop for the suspected missing items!"

Yuki and Shiko blinked at him.

"Huh?" Yuki finally ventured.

"I think he's trying to tell us we're going shopping again today," Shiko guessed, whispering loudly.

"Ohhhhh." Yuki nodded sagely, if still a bit tad confused. "I guess you can come in while we get ready."

Pushing the door father open, Yuki and Shiko turned their backs and left the door open as an invitation for Gai to come in. Hesitantly, he stepped into the entryway as the two girls dug through the bags, looking for their clothes.

**Thirteen minutes later:**

"And then, like this muted, three-legged cow comes up, and it transforms into Barney and tried to eat me. But them I pulled out my Chainsaw of Doom-it said that on the side, too, Chainsaw of Doom in big yellow letters so you can't miss it-and I chopped that stupid dinosaur into bloody little pieces. And he's screaming all through this, 'ahhhhh!' in this annoying high voice, a lot like that weird dude from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. An when he finally shuts up, of course I assume that he's dead-he's splattered into a million itsy bitsy pieces, who wouldn't? But when I turn around to leave, he's righ tin front of me, morphing up with half of his body gone. Looked like some sort of crossbreed between the Texas Chainsaw Massacre victims, that weird mask chick from InuYasha, and the ending in Toy Story. The one where all the toys are climbing out of the ground. Anyway, and this really demented version of 'I Love You' is playing in the background, and then the evil monkeys from the Wizard of Oz come and eat me. And then there was some nightmare about flowers and meadows and the Sound of Music, which I don't really remember." Finishing up my synopsis of my dream, I nodded slightly a couple times and tried to remember whether I forgot anything. "That was about it, I think. It was weird though, because the first one was more funny as I went through it, than scary."

"Talk about typical you," Shiko muttered, rolling her eyes. "You remember all about the psychotic mutant trying to eat you (which you strangely think is _funny_) but anything normal-what're you doing?" Hearing the sharp tone in her voice, Yuki paused and looked over.

"What does it look like? Taking off my shirt, duh!" Rolling her eyes, Yuki pulled the rest of the shirt over her head.

"You know, there are actually _guys_ in here." Shiko's 'duh' voice was getting too much use, Yuki noticed, glancing at Takomaru.

"If you mean oblivious and stupid here, I wouldn't worry. He's pretty out of it."

"No, I don't mean him. I mean him-Gai, you imbecile!" Rolling her eyes at Yuki's obliviousness, Shiko grasped the shorter girl's head and forcibly turned it towards where Gai was standing in the doorway. Unfortunately for Shiko's point, he had immediately turned around when Yuki had begun to strip. Nonetheless, the shorter girl got the point.

"Ohhhh." Yuki nodded slowly, dawning understanding on her face. "But, uh, Shiko, he's kinda already turned around."

Shiko smacked her forehead, muttering unhappily, "Really, Yuki, sometimes your stupidity overwhelms me."


End file.
